The Mute Protagonist

I've gotten so tired of the mute protagonist. If he was actually "mute" in that the other characters acknowledge his silence as well (like in something like Half-Life 2. "Man of few words, aren't you?") then it works somewhat, but most of the time it's simply that the hero speaks, only you don't hear it.

It doesn't work because you often don't have enough control over the hero's choices and personality in order to properly shape him into an image of yourself, and yet since he never says anything, you are left with a character that isn't you, but doesn't have enough of a personality of any sort to be their own person, much less an interesting one.

It was annoying in Zelda games, but it was just doable because Zelda never relied on story. Meanwhile, Crono was a massively dull character because of this and you only felt some form of sympathy for Serge because of all he had to go through, not particularly because of how he was.

The same way, as much as I love Suikoden 2, the silent hero is quite simply boring to follow for me in a long RPG. Tiny dialogue choices which almost never properly affect the outcome of anything isn't enough, I'd much rather have a fully formed character like Locke in FF6 or Ashley in Vagrant Story, or even a slightly more annoying character like Justin in Grandia, they're still far more interesting and likeable.

Jam it back in, in the dark.